


Sandstorm 19c

by Khlara



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Librarians, Minor Character Death, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 13:37:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khlara/pseuds/Khlara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You step into the portal and find yourself in a friendly desert community. Where the sun is hot, and the stars shine bright while the neighbors pretend to sleep. You realize you find yourself in Night Vale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sandstorm 19c

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually a writing prompt from a friend of mine on tumblr. Technically an author self-insert (I'm sorry!). The idea is: How long would you survive in Night Vale combined with How would you kill your doppelganger? Written with the episode "A Story About You" in mind. Un-beta'd.

A portal. That’s new. Yet even though it seems to be full of hope and malice, you enter the portal. Perhaps because it’s a lovely shade of purple, that is your favorite, or because your curious and wondrous nature compels you, but either way you step into the portal and find yourself in a friendly desert community. Where the sun is hot, and the stars shine bright while the neighbors pretend to sleep. You realize you find yourself in

Night Vale

The desert heat isn’t as oppressive as you would tend to think. Which is odd because you’ve been in the desert before and you know how oppressive the heat can be. And while the townspeople are friendly, they are also wary of you, and you don’t blame them. You know they have every right to be. You find yourself a motel, and enter Your Room. The floors aren’t so sticky, the blood doesn’t drip from the walls (only from the sink) and the shrieking down the hall is only intermittent. You think that you are rather lucky to have found such a motel room.

You spend your days wandering the town, eager to learn about it’s inhabitants. You don’t wonder about the day, or the time, or even the people you left at home. All of that is meaningless in a place like this. Instead, you wander out past the car lot to talk with Josie and to meet her angels. You later deny these same angels when the Sheriff’s Secret Police come to interrogate you. You follow all posted signs and speed limits, making sure to avoid the Dog Park, and to eat at Big Rico’s once a week. You miss wheat, and wheat by-products, it was your favorite back home, but you’ve learned to make due with the substitutes the town has provided.

You find a job. Not carrying crates out in the Sand Wastes like you thought you’d be doing, but instead you’ve found Carlos (perfect, beautiful Carlos. Cecil was right. You hate, and despair and love his hair all in equal measure) and you’ve found other scientists as well. They’re fascinated by how eagerly you take to the town, and how easily you avoided last week’s alligator infestation by simply not believing in it. You’ve gone up to the house that doesn’t exist and you’ve knocked on the door, rang the bell, several times. The scientists pay you to do this, and you do quite well at it. John Peters - you know, the farmer - suggests you could intern at Night Vale Radio. After all, you have a low, sultry sort of voice. But you are disinclined, knowing the turn over rate for radio interns. With your budding martial arts skills, and your librarian degree, you submit your resume to Night Vale Public Library instead, hoping that you have finally found one place where you can be accepted. It takes two days before you are tendered a rejection letter. Your acute sense of hope and eagerness is too much for the library.

You trudge home, dejected, saddened that even this magical town won’t accept you as a librarian when you spot someone at the entrance to the motel. Why, it’s you! Your breath catches. You worry. You didn’t think this day would come, but it has. It is your doppelganger. You carefully approach and see that she too is giving you the side eye. She offers you a cookie, which you decline, and instead offer to share your motel room with her. After all, you understand being strange and alone in a strange and lonely desert community. She accepts your invitation, and comes up.

You set out a light lunch as the two of you become fast friends. Talking, even laughing over silly jokes and sillier story ideas. You bring out the ice tea and mention that it is one of your favorites as you put several heaping spoons of sugar into it. Or is it? It is. You stir the tea and hand the other her glass. Both of you drink deeply. It is good tea, but you’ve always made very good tea. You set your glasses down, and the silence that would be awkward for other people, is comfortable for you two. You slide out a hand along the table, your doppelganger takes it. You give her a soft smile, she returns it.

Then she chokes.  
And panics.  
You hold her hand tighter.  
"You forgot the beginning to Psycho IV, didn’t you?" you ask her.  
Her eyes widen as she looks at the tea pitcher. You shake your head.  
"It was in the sugar. In the glass."  
She chokes again, as foam begins to froth from her mouth.  
"This is always the hard part." You say. You clutch hands.  
She perishes.

Or were you the doppelganger? Did you kill the original?

The portal opens again. This time in Lapis blue.

And you step through.


End file.
